I think “potassium hexadienate” is a mistranslation of “potassium sorbate” and I don’t see anything too concerning…but what were you expecting? If they just bottle freshly squeezed lemon juice without doing anything to it, it’ll probably go bad before it reaches the distributor and definitely once you’ve opened the bottle.
Preservatives are the price of being lazy. It’s pretty easy to just buy a bag of lemons, squeeze them, and freeze them in an ice cube tray for whenever you want relatively fresh unadulterated lemon juice.
What’s something better though? Do you have a preference for other preservatives like sodium benzoate, or do you want the lemon juice to be already bad when you get it? It’s not a Taiwan thing, it’s that fresh lemon juice will go bad if they don’t do something to it.
The “better” is freezing lemon juice in an ice cube tray and keeping it in your freezer. It’s like 15 min of work, then you’ve got lemon juice for a couple of months.
Other alternative is artificial lemon flavoring and citric acid to approximate the taste of lemonade. It won’t taste like lemon juice but it will never go bad.
Or they can ultra high temperature pasteurize it and it will be tetra packed, and sold without refrigeration. Besides the acid tends to suppress bacterial growth anyways.
Yeah, and then it’s not lemon juice, and some synthetic lemon-flavored concoction likely isn’t what somebody is looking for if they don’t even like the idea of small amounts of preservatives.
Yes, I’m aware of pasteurization. This is still delaying the inevitable, unless someone wants to use a liter of unpreserved lemon juice within a couple of days of opening.
Yes, it does. There are nonetheless bacteria that can survive in lemon juice, and lemon juice definitely does spoil (which can happen through both microbial growth and other mechanisms).
Most local supermarkets have it.
